Amid a sea of red in the stock market Wednesday, some of the names seeing the biggest losses are stocks that have been huge winners this year, favorites of the so-called momentum crowd. The culprit: Hedge-fund group think as fast-money traders look to book profits amid the continuing mess in Washington.

That group includes Tesla Motors Inc., down 3.7% today, but up 419% this year. Netflix Inc., another loser, was down 5.4%, but has gained 226% in 2013. LinkedIn Corp. was down 6.3% Tuesday and up 93% for the year, and Priceline.com Inc., was off 4.8% but up 59% this year.

The consumer discretionary, technology and materials sectors of the S&P 500-stock index lost 1.5%, 1.4% and 1.1%, respectively Tuesday. Over the past three months, technology shares are up 1.8% to the S&P 500’s 1.4%, consumer-discretionary shares are up 2.6%, and materials shares are up 6.9%. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index, up 10% for the past three months, was down 3.8% in recent trading.

“A lot of what you’re seeing is a resetting of some of the short-term tactical trades moving into the debt-ceiling crisis,” said Bryan Novak, director of trading and portfolio manager at Astor Asset Management. “The medium to longer-term players aren’t necessarily moving around in this market.”

“It’s trader types, not long-term investors” selling, he said. “Everybody is watching the same thing, and the closer we get to the [debt-ceiling] deadline without a resolution, the more buyers will get discounts.”